Restoring my Renault Clio 172 Cup track car.

[conor1n]

Alrighty then.. another update.

Great weekend. So I feel like I covered a nice bit over the weekend, and for brownie points I got to change the oil on my E class

TLDR; - Cleaned up the underbody, discovered a rotten section. Painted some parts. Checked alternator brushes.


Alternator / Engine. I plan on refurbing the externals of this and changing the timing belt and "dephaser" pulley. Extracting the alternator to check brush length and see if they need renewal. I don't want them to run out and see me left on the side of the road. Have you ever heard of anybody proactively renewing the brushes on their alternator? I haven't, but it's beggars belief.

Brushes look good to me.. plenty of life left in them I think... or is there?

Sprayed some de-rusted parts with primer on Saturday and black on Sunday. Hanging from the brake lines out of the car lol.. they are being replaced btw

I like this picture.

I also dismantled the rear brake compensator. It's supposed to be factory set for the Cup variants. I need to do some research on this. I don't fancy it going back in and I would like to investigate two options.

1. Removing it altogether and just installing a brake bias valve inside the car. This would serve a useful purpose in that I could crank up the rear bias for MOTs as tester often erroneously fail these cars due to lack of rear brake effort. So much so that the VOSA had to issue a bulletin for it, specifically for this model.
2. Re-install the above valve inside the car as the brake lines will be internal. Obviously omitting the spring mechanism as I believe that does nothing on the Cups anyway.

Upon inspection of some "file footage" this is it in situ, warts and all. Looks like the lever isn't connected to anything and as such the spring wouldn't move anyway. Therefore, the bias is predetermined and can't be affected by the travel on the rear beam.. To be continued.

 

[conor1n]

On Sunday I spent some time really getting into it with the underside of the body. Having recently queried how to clean up the nooks and crannies, I am delighted to announce I found the perfect tool. I had picked up a set of these Rolson Mini Brushes before for a couple quid and the nylon works really well. Please note that while these work well, a of the Rolson line up is not good at all, imo and I would not recommend them to anybody. I have also decided never to buy Rolson again.

I also found that using a can of brake cleaner or my spray bottle pressured up is good for then blasting out the agitated dirt.

I didn't get a picture of the cleaned underbody as phone died, but I will post next time I get one.

In the mean time, please see this hole I found!!

...What hole!?

This hole!!!

I think it has originated from the excessive jacking/support on that corner on the seams, which seems to have caused rot that crept in under the under seal. With that in mind, I will be inspecting the other corners too.

It doesn't seem that bad really and I am somewhat excited about it as it means I get to learn about that repair process. Now I will say this - It appears structural and as such I won't be doing the welding for the repair, having never welded before. I had always been thinking of adding some sill reinforcement for easy jacking/support. Given this will be a track car, it's going to get a lot more of that action than a normal daily driver.

I have 4 of these type of stands so it stands to reason I could build something that will accept these easily. I am thinking about a piece of slightly profiled steel plate with some rubber plates fixed on. In my head it would be quite tidy.

The other alternative is to buy some of these rally stands which should sit onto the axle stands. I feel less comfortable with that though, they will be visible from exterior also.

 

[James1979]

Isn't there a rally stand where it's just a hole visible and you put a did in on a triangle? Like a motocross bike stand.

Rubbish description sorry. I'll find a pic.....


Edit: seemingly they are called pin stands https://www.motorsport-tools.com/4-x-wrc-works-sill-stands-20mm-pin-race-rally-car-axle.html

 

[conor1n]

Isn't there a rally stand where it's just a hole visible and you put a did in on a triangle? Like a motocross bike stand.

Rubbish description sorry. I'll find a pic.....


Edit: seemingly they are called pin stands https://www.motorsport-tools.com/4-x-wrc-works-sill-stands-20mm-pin-race-rally-car-axle.html

Oh yea I have seen them. The plate and slot I posted would work with them.

The problem with those stands is that I already have 4 of the stands like the one I posted above and also those rally stands won't work on my other cars..... Oh and the price LMAO. Thanks though

 

[a111r]

Well, you're on a MIG welding forum, not a 'MB windbag' forum ... so, buy a gas MIG welder, practice a bit / a lot, and you'll fix it fine.

Otherwise, you're getting a mobile welder in for that, for as little time he'll spare on it, bish bash - which I'm sensing maybe won't meet your expectations.

 

[Cosantoir]

Conor I'm also new to welding and have yet to touch the chasis of my car with a welder but bought one over Christmas there are key structural parts in not going to touch and I'll get someone else to do to be sure even though it's a track car I think it would be best. But there's a tonne im going to do myself the guys here are great and a bit of practice does go a long long way.

For the 5-600 it'll cost ya to get setup I guarantee you'll get a better finish and save a tonne of money compared to getting someone in. Think of it 500 is pretty much the going rate to repair a sill so if you start on small bits and build up to it it pays for itself in almost 1 job

 

[conor1n]

Thanks guys,

I am definitely thinking of doing this myself as it doesn't seem that bad. Am I right in saying the most difficult part will be doing a neat job cleaning it all up and then forming a new shape.

The thing that gets me is the matter of how structurally important this area is. Is it major? There is a very well versed welder/engineer in the place I work who might give me a steer but I will look at doing most myself.

First steps i'll get it all back to clean metal and take it from there.

Well, you're on a MIG welding forum, not a 'MB windbag' forum ... so, buy a gas MIG welder, practice a bit / a lot, and you'll fix it fine.

Otherwise, you're getting a mobile welder in for that, for as little time he'll spare on it, bish bash - which I'm sensing maybe won't meet your expectations.

Lol, what made you think I have high expectations Tbh, I hate paying somebody a bunch of cash if I feel I can do the job myself or it's within my grasp.

 

[a111r]

Next step, I'll be trying to sell you one...

 

[conor1n]

Next step, I'll be trying to sell you one...

So i'm actually looking at them since last evening.. I think I want to buy a Clarke and currently looking at these models:

* MIG160EN Turbo 'No-Gas' MIG Welder
* MIG160TM (Turbo) MIG Welder

They are probably overkill for a car as they do up to 5mm steel but if I am investing I want to be able to do heavier stuff too.

What do you think? Do you run Weldequip or just a general authority on Welders?

 

[a111r]

No, just a hobbyist and welder fixer.
I'd choose a 151EN over the 160EN as it's £100 cheaper, has the same range and is made of metal not plastic.

 

[conor1n]

So this evening I started work on the rewiring. Starting with the rear loom as it's the smallest.

Baby steps..

First step is to identify all the connectors, pins and wires and then match them up in the wiring diagram I have.

Once I am comfortable with that, I will:
* Strip down any covering on the loom.
* Identify the wires I don't need and remove them
* decide on a colour scheme for the wires. I'm not going down the rainbow route.
* copy the loom by cutting out new lengths of wire and coding them to be similar to the existing loom.

Before actually cutting I will likely need to make some decisions about where I am putting the fuse boxes/ecu/etc. ECU and engine fuses are currently in the engine bay, I plan on putting them into the area that would previously have been the glovebox/dash area.

.. And I spent a while identifying all the connectors on this loom, using a wiring diagram I got online. The diagram refers to the X65 Clio II platform, and includes stuff such as A/C and ABS, which are not in my car.. So I need to be very careful.

The reason I am using this diagram as it's easy to understand. I need to be very cautious for the dash and engine looms. I'll be sourcing another set of diagrams to cross reference and double check against.

On this loom, I think I will be using everything and not binning anything.

 

[conor1n]

..Ok another weekend, another update.

Had a nice long weekend to get back on track as the previous weekend I did nothing at all.


So the biggest rust issue is around the 4 jacking points that were all mashed from previous misuse. One of the corners is very bad and the three remaining ones aren't so bad but will need some car. I spent a lot of time over the weekend pulling them apart to examine the extent of the rust. I think 3 of them won't need cutting/welding, but just a clean up with grinder, rust treatment and then some plying back together and some spot welds to keep them, followed by seam sealer..

The fourth seam needs some cutting and fabrication as you will see. These pics show as far as I got. You will see I probably need to cut more, but not sure to what extend. The guys working around me say I have nearly cut too much and just need to basically "tack" it back together... if I do anything else I am only making work for myself.

Two things on this -

a) I am doing this to learn and for fun. Doing is fun for me.
b) This is a track car, I don't want to compromise strength or rigidity, because time.

I'd love to hear what you would do with the repair.

 

[conor1n]

So this pic sums it up the best I think. You can see there are multiple skins here. One of them I seem to have cut back a bit too far.

What I am thinking is to weld on some sheet to each skin to extend the length then form them back into the same shape as before and spot weld them together like they did in factory. Probably run some multiple spots along the top where the three edges are exposed.

One of the other ideas presented to me was to put this stuff back together best effort without massive amounts of fab, then just create a new sheet to the overall profile of the sill/seams etc and weld it over the top, providing security. I'm not sure about that.

I really don't want any rust remaining.. part of me feels like I need to cut back a lot more to actually make it easier to repair. I feel like by cutting back only minimal bits it's far to tricky to get in there to weld small bits on here and there.

From watching videos online, it seems that most places cut back so that only simple shapes are being welded back in.

What do people think?

 

[Brad93]

Chop it all out and start fresh.

 

[Brad93]

But work section by section to make what you cut out as you go otherwise you might end up forgetting what went where

 

[conor1n]

Chop it all out and start fresh.

I feel like that makes a lot of sense. Would you agree that it's way more complex to cut away less and weld in itty bitty bits here and there, as opposed to cutting a lot out and welding in bit by bit as I form each sheet - like you say.

Thanks

 

[Brad93]

I feel like that makes a lot of sense. Would you agree that it's way more complex to cut away less and weld in itty bitty bits here and there, as opposed to cutting a lot out and welding in bit by bit as I form each sheet - like you say.

Thanks

Less complex but you’ll be blowing holes everywhere.

I’m not a car body man though, I despise welding on car body work. There are others here who can probably offer more advise on the actual welding and stitching the sills back togetbed

 

[conor1n]

I almost forgot to post some more bits..

I continued cleaning down the body and this weekend focused on the downward facing sections of the engine bay and also a front wheel well. I need to spend plenty of time cleaning this up as there is plenty of crud in tight spaces and if not removed, the paint won't stick - and look AWFUL!

Started work on cleaning up the engine too...

I don't plan on taking the head off or messing with the valve train, but I will overhaul everything else. Part of the job was to remove the PAS pump as I am going electric on this. Water pump came off too and will be replaced, as will the cam belt and the famous dephaser pulley. Crank pulley looks knackered too, so will probably be replaced.

No matter how hard I try.. there is always spillage, so I keep a bunch of cat litter nearby which is super stuff! €1.80 in Tesco for a bag, can't go wrong!

 

[a111r]

This will all look a bit daunting, until you get your Rebel 215- a-like.

General point on old cars, FWIW - don't get too hung up replicating the OEM triple skin areas and spot welds. They're there for cost / assembly speed with semi-skilled BIW labour.
Butts, gauge and thought gives you as strong a repair.

 

[conor1n]

Found this in the oil pickup.. the wire gauze doing it's job - I don't feel worried about this, should I be? Looks like a bit of sealant or something :/